Is NAS storage the right storage choice for your organization?
Storage is one of the most expensive costs businesses face, and as a result, storage management is a critical component of most IT infrastructures. Especially in the enterprise, storage can be complicated.
Storage is a crucial part of any business, not just for big companies with large storage needs. As technology advances at an ever-increasing pace, more information is being created and stored than ever before. SMBs and huge enterprises alike are looking for scalable and cost-effective storage solutions.
Organizations purchase different storage solutions for various purposes. Some are designed to handle massive amounts of data; others are optimized for speed, and some are intended to provide high availability or redundancy.
Here are some things that should be considered when deciding on a fine-tuned storage system.
Considerations for your storage system
Enterprise NAS storage does much more than offer file-level access to mass amounts of unstructured data. Enterprise NAS solutions include advanced data protection, management, and scalability features that go beyond traditional NAS offerings.
However, you should ask a few questions before determining if Network Attached Storage is the right choice for your organization.
How many hard drives will I need? Will I need up-time? How much redundancy is needed? Does it need to be fault-tolerant? How much performance do I need? How many simultaneous users do I need to account for? Do I require support for advanced file systems? Will this device be used predominantly for storing files or media content like photos and videos?
The decision for an Enterprise NAS solution hovers around four main factors: performance, scalability, availability, and manageability.
- Performance refers to the speed with which data can be accessed.
- Scalability speaks to the capacity to upgrade storage capacity when needed.
- Availability addresses the likelihood that data will remain accessible when needed.
- Manageability covers how well a device can be administered over its life cycle so that its performance matches changing demands.
Standalone or clustered NAS systems?
For small businesses that don’t have a lot of data, standalone systems work well. But if you have a large amount of data — more than a few hundred terabytes. In this case, you are better off with a cluster of NAS units. A cluster lets you add more storage as your business grows.
It’s possible to buy network attached storage in a preconfigured cluster (sometimes called an active-active configuration). But most businesses will want to set up their cluster from individual units. This gives them the flexibility they need to expand their business as needed. It means they can spread the units out over multiple servers in multiple locations if they want.
This means more control over your storage and more cost savings from the start.
Bottom Line
Enterprise NAS storage is a critical component of any enterprise infrastructure. Its primary purpose is to act as a central data repository for all of an organization’s documents, multimedia files, and other data. Many enterprises deal with large amounts of data generated by day-to-day business operations. This information must be stored somewhere, so it’s essential to choose the storage solution that best fits your company’s needs.
If you are looking for the best NAS systems, we recommend checking Stonefly’s super scale-out systems.
